What The Movie Oppenheimer Taught Me About Technology Development...

[Spacescifi]

Is that it is inevitable with mankind. As long as man exists, he/she will continue to craft and develop new tools.

A weapon is really just a tool, a tool of destruction but still a tool.

I am no prophet, but based on mankind's history there is reason to believe that humanity will continue to find and exploit greater forms of power than we currently do.

For example, humanity of the 40th century, barring they are not recovering from an apocalypse, should have access to greater power sources than we do now.

At some point mankind will venture into space and try to live there, but barring warp or FTL to Earth 2.0 or really good terraforming we are mostly going to be stuck here on the planet we grew up on.

What drives technology development?

Two things come to mind. Necessity and profit.

In the case of Oppenheimer they needed an atomic bomb to end the war in a fantastic manner. In the case of more common inventions maximizing profit via utility or convenience is a driving force.

So it would seem to me that technology development, for better or worse, is inevitable.

If it can make a significant profit it WILL exist. If we need it it will exist.

Whether man continues to make WMD in the 40th century is anyone's guess.... but I think we can always be sure of one thing.

Humanity will always be capable of making WMD anyway as they develop their tech, so we need not fear technology development BECAUSE we cannot stop it anyway. If Oppenheimer had not made the atom bomb someone else would have as it was an international arms race.

So long humans fear and are vigilant abouut the misuse of technology that will save us from our own self-induced apocalypse.

We have survived this far and will continue to so long this holds.

 

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by Spacescifi

[Nuke]

not sure when we will get the movie. out little hole in the wall theater at the high school does movies on the weekends (a clever way to pay for teen sports). the next 3 weekends are booked up, with barbie being the last one, since it came out around the same time its a fair bet that oppenheimer will be next. 

anyway i see nuclear weapons as mankind's maturity test, which thus far it has passed (some initial use is required because who would believe you otherwise). i suppose its one of many filters a civilization must go through. if we are to move out into the greater galaxy and beyond, we are going to need to master very high energy systems. any one of which could glass a planet when used carelessly or maliciously if it falls into the wrong hands. nuclear warheads are the only viable means of interstellar propulsion at our disposal, provided we find a valid reason to to tank the economy for years building it. want something better than old boom boom? its going to be even more dangerous. ultimately the biggest filter is not technological, its is our own behavior. 

[Spacescifi]

18 minutes ago, Nuke said:

not sure when we will get the movie. out little hole in the wall theater at the high school does movies on the weekends (a clever way to pay for teen sports). the next 3 weekends are booked up, with barbie being the last one, since it came out around the same time its a fair bet that oppenheimer will be next. 

anyway i see nuclear weapons as mankind's maturity test, which thus far it has passed (some initial use is required because who would believe you otherwise). i suppose its one of many filters a civilization must go through. if we are to move out into the greater galaxy and beyond, we are going to need to master very high energy systems. any one of which could glass a planet when used carelessly or maliciously if it falls into the wrong hands. nuclear warheads are the only viable means of interstellar propulsion at our disposal, provided we find a valid reason to to tank the economy for years building it. want something better than old boom boom? its going to be even more dangerous. ultimately the biggest filter is not technological, its is our own behavior. 

 

True that.

I read an interesting fanfic based on the outsider universe that has the Loroi and humanity teaming up to explore an unexplored part of the galaxy to find and help neutralize a huge threat.

Along the way they met a hyperadvanced old race that preexisted the Loroi.

Naturally the human present asked this super advanced alien why they did not help younger races become more advanced.

The higher race said that they used to... and it becomes a hot mess when such races destroy themselves. So instead they just watch and let nature take it's course. If a race is meant to survive it will, and if not it should be allowed to die like it is going to do anyway.

Survival is like you said.... not of the fittest, but the best behaving..

Edited July 25, 2023 by Spacescifi

[tater]

Waiting for someone I know to see it. I know a lot about the history (before and after), heck, I had dinner with an older friend of ours Saturday who grew up in Los Alamos during the war (she was a little kid). Her dad ended up head of P div at LANL under Bradbury. She said her parents always called him "oppy."

As for necessity vs profit, depends on how you define "necessity." The launch market, even under optimistic scenarios of growth, "business" somehow appearing in space (mfg, mining, etc) is chump change for the foreseeable future, so for the typical discussions HERE around tech dev for space travel, profit is not a motivator. Necessity on the scale of "end the war in the PTO without killing 100s of thousands of American boys, and far more Japanese isn't a thing. Made up necessity maybe—"we need to send 1000 rockets to Mars every 2 years, for reasons!"

[kerbiloid]

The necessity was in the vulnerability of British Islands as an aircraft carrier, and their expected occupation.

It would dramatically decrease the bombing ability, so they started both intercontinental bomber and nuclear bomb.

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, tater said:

Waiting for someone I know to see it. I know a lot about the history (before and after), heck, I had dinner with an older friend of ours Saturday who grew up in Los Alamos during the war (she was a little kid). Her dad ended up head of P div at LANL under Bradbury. She said her parents always called him "oppy."

As for necessity vs profit, depends on how you define "necessity." The launch market, even under optimistic scenarios of growth, "business" somehow appearing in space (mfg, mining, etc) is chump change for the foreseeable future, so for the typical discussions HERE around tech dev for space travel, profit is not a motivator. Necessity on the scale of "end the war in the PTO without killing 100s of thousands of American boys, and far more Japanese isn't a thing. Made up necessity maybe—"we need to send 1000 rockets to Mars every 2 years, for reasons!"

Yes but the reason to start the Manhattan project was because the US believed Germany was ahead of them in the race to the bomb so the US used lots of resources to come in first. They also underestimated the challenges creating enough plutonium or U-235. 

[kerbiloid]

They had excessive 12 000 t of silver.

So, they were able to enrich the U in calutrons, instead of centrifuges and various weird early designs.

While the USSR was building centrifuges from the very beginning. (Not without help of the pre-WWII German engineers, driven away by pedants.)

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

They had excessive 12 000 t of silver.

So, they were able to enrich the U in calutrons, instead of centrifuges and various weird early designs.

While the USSR was building centrifuges from the very beginning. (Not without help of the pre-WWII German engineers, driven away by pedants.)

They wanted to use standard copper wire, but copper had lots of other uses during the war and the silver was held by the treasury and would be safe at the production facility, silver was return after the war.

[tater]

10 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Yes but the reason to start the Manhattan project was because the US believed Germany was ahead of them in the race to the bomb so the US used lots of resources to come in first. They also underestimated the challenges creating enough plutonium or U-235. 

The US assessment of Japan as a secondary threat was there from the start of the war. US followed "Plan Orange" with some minor changes, the outcome was never in question (though a different foe would have surrendered and stopped the war once it was clear which way it was going). Having started the program, Truman was left with a non-choice. Failure to use it to end the war quickly without forcing invasion (which it absolutely did) was pretty much impossible. 100s of thousands of grieving families finding out Truman could have possibly ended the war, but made their fathers/sons/husbands walk into machine gun fire and get killed, instead?

Good books on the end game in the PTO:

Tennozan

Downfall

also Combined Fleet Decoded (not about the end of the war, but loads of information on what the IGHQ was thinking throughout the war).

[SunlitZelkova]

18 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

If Oppenheimer had not made the atom bomb someone else would have as it was an international arms race.

I heavily disagree. The atomic bomb was brought about by the hubris and catastrophic decision making of the early 20th century.

Without that, we could have very easily avoided the deaths of millions and ended up with nuclear reactors for power generation only.

It should also be noted that the reason other countries built nuclear weapons was because the US had them. The Soviets had no interest in such a weapon until the Americans had one.

So what happens if Giuseppe Zangara doesn’t wobble on his chair and that lady doesn’t swing her purse, and Roosevelt dies in 1933? No recovery from the Great Depression and no money for a nuclear program.

Nuclear bombs themselves get buried as “Jewish physics” in Germany. And then everything rests on Japan. Nuclear reactors will definitely be built in both countries after an Axis victory, but nuclear weapons may not come to fruition.

History could have gone many different ways, and continues to be unpredictable. For all we know a Kuiper Belt object is hurtling toward Earth, and human history is about to end (or be reduced in technologicality heavily).

[tater]

41 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

and Roosevelt dies in 1933? No recovery from the Great Depression and no money for a nuclear program.

WW2 was the recovery from the Great Depression. FDR made it worse/longer, not better before the war started.

 

41 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Without that, we could have very easily avoided the deaths of millions and ended up with nuclear reactors for power generation only.

Millions? The two bombs combined  killed marginally more people than the second Tokyo firebombing raid. WW2 was a human catastrophe where conventional  warfare was easily capable of truly shocking death tolls. Dan Carlin put it well when he discussed "Logical Insanity" in an episode of Hardcore History of the same name. The Germans start by bombing civilians in the UK—not necessarily intentionally, it was impossible to bomb targets in any city at that time without hitting civilians, a "precision" mission would maybe land 80% of the bombs within 2 miles of the aim point, but I recall reading about bomber jettisoning bombs and heading home, which hit a neighborhood. RAF responded by attacking Germans in kind, then Coventry happened, and Bomber Command developed the art/science of starting firestorms with night time area bombing. The USAAF stuck to "precision" daylight attacks, but many bombs obviously hit well outside targeted factories, etc. LeMay moves to the PTO, and the jet stream, distance, etc make "strategic" bombing virtually impossible over Japan (not to mention distributed industry/"piece work"). He elects to switch to the RAF Bomber Command model, and burns whole cities to the ground. BDA was done in "square miles destroyed." They also mined the Inland Sea, and the USN submarine service did what the U-boats never came close to doing, they completely destroyed the Japanese Merchant Marine. The island nation of Japan, that required outside inputs from over the water was starving, and cities were burning as fast as they got on the target list. Civilian bombing deaths in total are estimated at ~675k for Japan—and technically that is overstated as by Imperial Edict in March '45, every male from 15-60, and every female from 17 to 40 was conscripted for the final battle (invasion), making all those people technically combatants.

Anyway, nukes did not kill millions, and arguably their existence prevented a conventional WW3. In the counterfactual with no nukes, the US still defeats Japan while losing substantially more American lives—and vastly more Japanese lives than were killed by the bombs—using Okinawa as a model, the Japanese lost ~10X the US losses. 250k US soldiers dead? 2.5M Japanese. 500k? 5M. That's just on the Home Islands and still a nightmare for both sides. The CCCP then invades the Japanese holdings on the mainland... hard to even imagine the toll there. And there was a standing order for all POWs held by the Japanese everywhere in the Empire to be eliminated upon invasion of Japan—most were civilians from the countries the Japanese took at the start of the war—several hundred thousand people. Anyway, the war ends, and minus nukes there is still a Cold War (though it's hard to imagine people somehow not figuring out "physics" and building bombs anyway—they are possible, so their construction was certain, IMHO). That Cold War minus nukes would be far, far more likely to turn hot. Why not? So more deaths.

As awful as the bombs were, they were just a more efficient way to kill people, the attitude that made killing huge numbers normal was already there because of the war (at the most charitable, or just in human nature).

Edited July 25, 2023 by tater

[Nuke]

again human behavior is the biggest great filter. inherited from the transition from apehood to humanhood. no mater what notions of civilization you claim to hold, it is so easy to fall back on old patterns, patterns which are very destructive at scale. and with post industrial weapons of war, those behaviors had us killing eachother in droves. sometimes it takes an existential threat to make people think about what they are doing. things like nuclear weapons and climate change.

lets say we all agree to give up nuclear weapons, we start having them dismantled and their cores burned in nuclear power plants. it only takes the last world leader to go: "haha we got nukes and you dont, surrender or die!" of course they wouldn't be the only one to pull that stunt and they would be lobbing nukes at each other in short order. old patterns are always there. its better to just let the nukes rust in their silos and carry out our stupid little proxy wars as the world leaders beat on their chests like gorillas. on the other side the good thing about primitive instincts is that survival is one of them. 

[kerbiloid]

With or without WWII, a primitive nuclear device would appear and be tested within a decade from the fission discovery.

WWII just made this a little faster due to the motivation, but WWII absence would make it easier due to economy.

Also, once you have started uranium enrichment for the reactor, you automatically get fissiles for much simpler military needs.

[tater]

39 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

With or without WWII, a primitive nuclear device would appear and be tested within a decade from the fission discovery.

WWII just made this a little faster due to the motivation, but WWII absence would make it easier due to economy.

Also, once you have started uranium enrichment for the reactor, you automatically get fissiles for much simpler military needs.

Yeah, there's no alternate history where nukes are not built within a short time period of when they were. All possible tech will be built by someone.

[Spacescifi]

39 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, there's no alternate history where nukes are not built within a short time period of when they were. All possible tech will be built by someone.

 

Really I think we live in a timeline that could have been much worse.

Imagine if Hitler waited to have WW2 until his scientists figured out nukes?

Imagine if he held off persecuting the Jews until his henchmen figured out how to make nukes on their own?

German tech was ahead of it's time, so they would have probably still lost due to lack of resources but putting atom bombs in V2 rockets headed for both eastern Europe and the UK could have happened at worst.

More likely they would just use it to wipe out enemy armies so they would not have to use and lose their own.

Edited July 26, 2023 by Spacescifi

[TheSaint]

I'm just going to post this inconvenient fact right here, and then continue to duck out of the debate.

Nuclear weapons are super easy to make.

We like to think that they are really complicated. But the reality is, they aren't. All you have to do is figure out a way to make 52 kilograms of uranium-235 come together in one place at one time, and you have an atomic bomb.

This is why in the 1970s the efforts around non-proliferation shifted from stopping the spread of information to stopping the spread of enriched uranium.

So trying to say, "Well, in my timeline, nuclear weapons were never invented," makes your timeline sound like it is moving backwards. Just sayin'.

Okay, I'm going to go back to killing my brain cells with bourbon now.

[Spacescifi]

Just now, TheSaint said:

I'm just going to post this inconvenient fact right here, and then continue to duck out of the debate.

Nuclear weapons are super easy to make.

We like to think that they are really complicated. But the reality is, they aren't. All you have to do is figure out a way to make 52 kilograms of uranium-235 come together in one place at one time, and you have an atomic bomb.

This is why in the 1970s the efforts around non-proliferation shifted from stopping the spread of information to stopping the spread of enriched uranium.

So trying to say, "Well, in my timeline, nuclear weapons were never invented," makes your timeline sound like it is moving backwards. Just sayin'.

Okay, I'm going to go back to killing my brain cells with bourbon now.

I know. Watching Oppenheimer was shocking because during development Teller was talking about "If we do this and that we could cause nuclear fusion and increase the destructive capacity."

In other words, Teller wanted to start on nuclear weapons BEFORE we even finished the atom bomb.

[kerbiloid]

The idea of the fusion bomb had appeared even before the uranium fission was discovered.
The fission just clarified, how to ignite the D+T fuze.

[tater]

8 hours ago, TheSaint said:

Okay, I'm going to go back to killing my brain cells with bourbon now.

Sadly even the lounge might not let us have a conversation just on that (my own collection is now pushing 20 bottles).

[tater]

8 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

I know. Watching Oppenheimer was shocking because during development Teller was talking about "If we do this and that we could cause nuclear fusion and increase the destructive capacity."

In other words, Teller wanted to start on nuclear weapons BEFORE we even finished the atom bomb.

Teller was always all-in for the "super."

 

As an aside, anyone else notice quotes can't be broken up any more?

8 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

German tech was ahead of it's time, so they would have probably still lost due to lack of resources but putting atom bombs in V2 rockets headed for both eastern Europe and the UK could have happened at worst.

More likely they would just use it to wipe out enemy armies so they would not have to use and lose their own.

Their constant dev of tech in order to try and avoid the inevitable (they never controlled enough economic resources to defeat their enemies, particularly not once they made the mistake of declaring war on the US) was in fact counter productive. The US famously worked to get designs that were "good enough" for the task at hand, then went into truly mass production. The US also concentrated on the supply chain (as one does when one is used to selling stuff). Logistics wins wars. A few hundred vastly superior aircraft than can only manage to get a few 10s in the air per day loses to 2000 less capable aircraft in the air. Or large numbers of meh tanks that are easy to fix (driven by guys who own and fix their own cars/tractors at home) beat incredibly good tanks that are finicky, driven by people who take public transit at home, and need specialized mechanics to fix.

The counterfactual of a later start date for the war is interesting, but made more complicated by Japan. Japan started a war that their own IGHQ thought had a 90% chance of failure resulting in (their own words), "national death." (from a post war interview mentioned in Combined Fleet Decoded). They started anyway since they had left the Washington Naval Treaty earlier, and the US responded by securing the money to increase the fleet. The US data was all public—Congress passed a budget, and the plan for what ships would be built, when was in all the papers. The Essex Class CVs that were commissioning in 1943 were paid for before the war ever started. So I think Japan has to start their war around when they did regardless. Does Germany join in solidarity? Another bizarre counterfactual is that many forget that Germany was in cahoots with the CCCP. Maybe they actually team up in some counterfactual (as they did vs Poland (something many also tend to forget/ignore)? This latter is an interesting one since the US government was absolutely riddled with Soviet agents—up to the the assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State. So the German-Soviet team would have a lot of intelligence that the Germans lacked. Course Stalin sharing intel with even an ally seems... unlikely.

BTW, I recommend reading up on the end-game of WW2 in books written after the mid 1990s. There was a brief period after 1991 when some old Soviet era documents became available (there's good Yale University Press series with a lot of this), then in 1996 much of the US codebreaking was finally declassified. During the war years (and before), the US was reading even the comms of our allies, or of neutral countries. Importantly, the Soviets diplomatic cipher was a one time pad, but because of the war, they reused pads... which meant we read those as well. This played into some post war drama in the US, since the authorities could not tell how they knew what they knew about various spies. Tough to make a legal case when you know someone is a spy because managed to link a code name with them, and you read the report because the code was broken—but you don't want the other guys to halt their current efforts, since as long as they keep on keeping on, you have a handle on some of their assets.

 

[Nuke]

12 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

Really I think we live in a timeline that could have been much worse.

Imagine if Hitler waited to have WW2 until his scientists figured out nukes?

Imagine if he held off persecuting the Jews until his henchmen figured out how to make nukes on their own?

German tech was ahead of it's time, so they would have probably still lost due to lack of resources but putting atom bombs in V2 rockets headed for both eastern Europe and the UK could have happened at worst.

More likely they would just use it to wipe out enemy armies so they would not have to use and lose their own.

or maybe don't try to fight a war on too many fronts. hitler's biggest mistake was to backstab stalin and invade russia. hostilities were there, so stalin would have probibly done the same if given the chance, but further down the line. but once the blitzkrieg met the russian meat grinder at stalingrad, the war was pretty much decided. d-day was just a formality at that point. russian attrition had left their fangs broken. one could argue that if they did not waste resources (human resources, not just the administration costs) on the holocaust he may have had the manpower and the skill within germany to actually hold onto his reich, but i honestly dont think hitler could have come to power in the first place without his preferred scapegoat.

it could have just as easily been one of the others, goebbels, himmler, etc. they could have thrown conscripted jews at the eastern front while their scientists develop the bomb, and they would have had a long range delivery system, then knock out london and moscow in one fell swoop. things could have gone a lot worse. in this alt timeline i suppose einstein would have never sent his letter to fdr and the manhattan project may have never even got off the ground. if it did, then the end of ww2 would have had a lot more boom boom.  

Edited July 26, 2023 by Nuke

[Nuke]

4 hours ago, tater said:

Sadly even the lounge might not let us have a conversation just on that (my own collection is now pushing 20 bottles).

not sure its possible for me to collect it, it keeps disappearing. so i limit my consumption to a couple bottles a year. usually on my birthday and during the holiday season (my personal tradition is that booze gifted on christmas must be consumed by new years). my 42nd birthday is coming up, so this is the one where i discover the meaning of life, the universe and everything. i suspect it will involve pink elephants.  

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, Nuke said:

or maybe don't try to fight a war on too many fronts. hitler's biggest mistake was to backstab stalin and invade russia. hostilities were there, so stalin would have probibly done the same if given the chance, but further down the line. but once the blitzkrieg met the russian meat grinder at stalingrad, the war was pretty much decided. d-day was just a formality at that point. russian attrition had left their fangs broken. one could argue that if they did not waste resources (human resources, not just the administration costs) on the holocaust he may have had the manpower and the skill within germany to actually hold onto his reich, but i honestly dont think hitler could have come to power in the first place without his preferred scapegoat.

it could have just as easily been one of the others, goebbels, himmler, etc. they could have thrown conscripted jews at the eastern front while their scientists develop the bomb, and they would have had a long range delivery system, then knock out london and moscow in one fell swoop. things could have gone a lot worse. in this alt timeline i suppose einstein would have never sent his letter to fdr and the manhattan project may have never even got off the ground. if it did, then the end of ww2 would have had a lot more boom boom.  

Yep.... kind of hard to do D-day when Germany is ready and willing to atom bomb Normandy.

I think... provided a truce was not worked out, the USA's industrial might enables them to make more A-bombs and win the war with them.

Europe is a total mess though.

Edited July 26, 2023 by Spacescifi

[tater]

44 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

Yep.... kind of hard to do D-day when Germany is ready and willing to atom bomb Normandy.

I think... provided a truce was not worked out, the USA's industrial might enables them to make more A-bombs and win the war with them.

Europe is a total mess though.

I don't think there's a plausible counterfactual where Germany has a bomb at all, much less first. Einstein came to the US soon after Hitler took power. The Germans discovered fission at the very end of 1938. They started a small project to work the issue in April of 1939. In August 1939, Einstein wrote his letter to FDR. The US spent a small effort from that point forward (maybe a couple million $ over a few years), but did not work in earnest until the Manhattan District (Project) started in 1942. The US then spent ~$2B dollars from 1942 to completion in 1945, employing hundreds of thousands.

Germany spent ~$2M in USD for their entire effort. In order to imagine a Germany first counterfactual, they would somehow need to be interested far, far earlier than they were. Einstein is writing his letter regardless. The US, even just doing minimal effort work after that letter to see what was possible spent as much in 3 years as Germany spent for the whole effort over 6 years, the we finished by spending 1000X more.

By 1944 (Normandy), Germany would have needed a US scaled effort (where are they getting the fissile material, BTW?) in 1941 at the latest—is that even plausible given the relative size of population/economies/etc? Also, bombing Normandy literally assumes the war started as it did—in which case Germany has no path to securing the materials needed, much less making a bomb. Remember that the US pushed really hard as a race to beat Germany (loads of smart people there with the skills), Germany would have had to think of it as not "a super weapon," but, "we need to beat a combination of the US/UK to get the super weapon." So they would have had to estimate what the US could afford in terms of money and manpower—and dedicate MORE manpower/$. Incredibly unlikely (and very likely not even possible). Then if the US learns of such a program, we just spend yet more. We had more of everything, in that sort of arms race, the smaller country/economy loses.

Edited July 26, 2023 by tater

[magnemoe]

On 7/25/2023 at 9:12 PM, tater said:

The US assessment of Japan as a secondary threat was there from the start of the war. US followed "Plan Orange" with some minor changes, the outcome was never in question (though a different foe would have surrendered and stopped the war once it was clear which way it was going). Having started the program, Truman was left with a non-choice. Failure to use it to end the war quickly without forcing invasion (which it absolutely did) was pretty much impossible. 100s of thousands of grieving families finding out Truman could have possibly ended the war, but made their fathers/sons/husbands walk into machine gun fire and get killed, instead?

Good books on the end game in the PTO:

Tennozan

Downfall

also Combined Fleet Decoded (not about the end of the war, but loads of information on what the IGHQ was thinking throughout the war).

Agree, also do not forget the Soviet, after the fall of Germany they moved army group sized forces east and moved into the Japanese held parts of China and Korea. 
One option to downfall would be to assist Soviet in taking Japan just helping with planes and ships. 
The atomic bomb its the reason its an South Korea as it ended the war before the Soviet could take it all.